Life Ain't Always Beautiful
by a pretty girl in a glass box
Summary: Dwelling wouldn’t do him any good. It was clear this wasn’t going to lead anywhere, and Sean firmly resolved then and there to forget about the girl he loved. What she needed was to get a grip on herself. She was trying to figure something out that didn’t


**Disclaimer:** Believe me, if I owned Degrassi, I wouldn't be writing fan fictions, cuz you could watch what I wanted happening on CTV/the-N.

Sean Cameron walked back through the front door of his parents' small house in Wasaga. Looking back out the door before he shut it, he didn't know what he had been thinking. He'd left for a reason. And in going back, for what he wanted, he had somehow hoped that she wouldn't have moved on.

Truth. He had left Degrassi. Truth. He hadn't been able to take the pressure. Truth. He'd left to give Ellie a break from him, so she wouldn't have to deal with him. He had wanted her to move on. That was a lie. He told himself he had left her with Degrassi so she wouldn't have to deal with him. But he hadn't expected her to move on.

But did he really think he could just go back there, feed her some bullshit story about why he was really there, and tell her he still wanted to be with her? And then what? Had he expected her to take him back?

No. He hadn't expected it. He had hoped it. He had wanted it really bad. But he hadn't expected it.

Sean shook his head, clearing his thoughts out of his mind. It was no use dwelling on it right now. Or ever for that matter. Ellie had moved on, and like she had said, it wasn't his business. Not anymore. She'd shut him out. He'd lost her. Forever.

He sighed as he headed into the small bathroom to take a shower. Maybe some hot water would clear his mind. He turned the faucet on, then pulled the knob that made the water pour from the shower head. The water only stayed warm for five minutes before turning steadily colder, but Sean didn't care. He looked down at his chest. _Emma_. What had he been thinking?

As the cold water poured over his head, the bathroom around Sean became fuzzy as he thought back to having it put on.

_There was a loud banging on the old screen door. Sean turned the TV off to go answer it. _

"_Hey man," was all he managed to catch as a figure it a cap with sunglasses slapped him on the back and made it's way inside._

"_Jay man," Sean responded in surprise. He'd left maybe a little over a month and a half ago, and hadn't been expecting any visitors up here. "What're you doing here?"_

"_Rough week," Jay had responded. "Alex just totally ditched my ass, cuz I cheated on her with… a few people, including her best friend Amy. She went completely haywire on me. Your old man keep anything in the fridge?" he had asked, opening it up without waiting for a response, but not seeing anything._

"_Lame," Jay had stated. "Let's get you out of this dump for a while…"_

_A lot of the rest of the days events were a blur. Up to the point where Sean remembered sitting in a bar, drunkenly laughing with Jay, as they trashed on how much Alex had screwed Jay over and how Emma had screwed over Sean._

"_We should get their names tattooed across our hearts!" Jay suggested. "Then, whenever we see them there, we'll remember the pain of having the needle stabbing us thousands of times for them, and that pain will remind us how they messed us up."_

_Sean being drunk as hell, thought it was one of the most reasonable things Jay had ever said, and the two had stumbled to a tattoo parlor down the way, where they picked a font, and spent the next couple hours cringing in pain as the names Emma and Alex were tattooed across their chests._

_The two stumbled back to Sean's laughing, and passed out in the living room. The next morning, hung over Jay had stepped into the shower, and practically screamed when he looked down at his chest. Quickly getting out of the shower, with a towel wrapped around his waist, Jay went out to Sean, pointing at it._

"_Did you get one too?" he'd asked, reaching for the collar of Sean's shirt._

"_Ow," Sean had said when Jay's hand hit the spot through the shirt where the tattoo was. "Guess so, cuz it hurts like hell."_

"_At least we got the names of the girls we love, right?" Jay had asked with a relieved laugh._

_After Jay had gone, Sean had gone in for a shower. He took off his shirt and got in the shower, then looked down at the burning red spot on his chest._

_Emma? It said Emma? How the hell had that happened_?

Sean pulled his eyes off the black scar on his chest that read the name of his first love, the water now ice cold. She may have been his first love, but he'd gotten over it. Now all he had was this constant reminder of the control freak who wanted to change everything about him.

He shook his head, droplets of water flying everywhere. Dwelling wouldn't do him any good. It was clear this wasn't going to lead anywhere, and Sean firmly resolved then and there to forget about the girl he loved.

XoXoX---- OxOxO ----XoXoX

Ellie Nash stood in front of the mirror, doing something she often did, but would never admit to. She was studying her reflection.

What was it about her that had one boy wanting another chance and another dating his ex instead of her? But the longer Ellie stood in front of the mirror, the more confused she became by the whole situation. As far as she could tell, there was nothing special worth holding on to, or anything repulsive enough to avoid.

She sighed. She had always known that Craig was a lost cause. Even if it could have worked it wouldn't have. He was Ash's ex. And exes were off limits. Ellie had no idea how she had let herself fall for him.

And then there was Sean. She knew the bike shop had been an excuse the moment the words crossed his lips. That, and he told her he still cared. If he had really been there for just the bike shop, he wouldn't have bothered calling her, coming to see her, and then kissing her and telling her something like that. No, that wouldn't make sense at all.

It made even more sense after Jay had come to see her.

"_So, Sean is gone again," Jay had said with a casual purpose when Ellie made the mistake of sitting at the table adjacent to his at The Dot._

"_Yeah, I heard," Ellie had responded, her back still to Jay as she sipped her drink. "Big deal."_

_At that point, Jay pulled himself around, getting out of his table and joining Ellie at hers. She simply rolled her eyes as he spoke. "I know it's none of my business, but I know Sean, too. He wasn't here for that bike shop Ellie, he was here for you."_

"_Good to know," she had replied, her voice full and brimming with its usual sarcasm that came when she really didn't give a flying hoot, but also feeling slightly elated at the prospect of the reality of the statement._

"_There may be someone else, Ellie, for now," Jay had told her, leaning foreword. "At least for now. But you and Sean were meant for each other. Just like me and Alex." He had given her a thoughtful last glance, as if telling her to just consider it, and then stood from the table and left. _

Of course that had made it make more sense. He was flat out explaining it to her. He was wrong though, once you got past the main thing he had been trying to get across. Ellie firmly believe that Sean had not been made for her, or she for him. She knew it. She just hoped Sean would figure it out.

Over the last months though, Ellie had indeed considered it, but as of yet, she hadn't seen any need to take action. There was still Craig, even if he was still with Manny, and currently gone. She didn't care that she didn't have a chance with him. Something that led nowhere was better than something that led to pain, heartache, and lonely nights in a dark, empty apartment.

Ellie shook her head, red hair brushing on and off her black clothed shoulders, to clear her mind. She looked back at her reflection in the mirror, frowning.

As much as she hated to think about it, she did. Here she was, once again with several months gone past since she had seen Sean, and she was still thinking about that last time he had showed his face in town. What she needed was to get a grip on herself. She was trying to figure something out that didn't need to be figured. It needed to be left alone.

XoXoX---- OxOxO ----XoXoX

A year had passed, and both lovers had all but forgotten the other. True, every time Sean saw that tattoo on his chest, he wished he'd gotten the name of the girl he loved. But his thoughts never carried him farther than that. And after many failed, so-called attempts with Craig, Ellie had been able to admit she was using her crush on him as an excuse to forget about Sean. But then she discovered one day she didn't need an excuse to forget about Sean, because she had done it on her own.

XoXoX---- OxOxO ----XoXoX

Ellie put her coffee cup to her lips as she flipped the newspaper open, looking for an apartment for herself, or someone that already had an apartment but was looking for a roommate. Her eyes scanned down the page, looking for something acceptable. She got to a particular ad, kept going, and then allowed her eyes to shoot back up in shock.

Small, two bed, one bath apartment. Seeking roommate. Contact Sean Cameron… 

She tried, coffee cup still in her hand, holding it to her mouth, to tear her eyes away from the ad, but somehow couldn't manage it. When she was finally able to move and think again, she set her cup down, and against her better judgment, pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She punched the number on the cell pad and held the phone to her ear.

_Hello,_ she heard on the other end of the line. Panicked, she slammed the phone shut. What had she been thinking? She couldn't just call Sean. She had allowed herself to forget about him, and she was going to keep it that way.

XoXoX---- OxOxO ----XoXoX

Sean looked at his phone, puzzled. Had it been a wrong number? He was used to getting weird phone calls ever since he posted an ad for a roommate in the paper, but that was the first time someone had hung up on him. He didn't recognize the number either.

Over the next week, Sean tried the best he could to get that call out of his head, but for some reason he couldn't shake the feeling that maybe he should call the number back and see what it was all about. Something in him told him that the phone call hadn't been an accident, and that the person hadn't hung up for no reason.

At night, Sean stared at the phone, willing the stranger to call back until he fell asleep.

He'd had several hang-ups in his life, but this one had been different and it tortured him. What had really bothered him about it was that there had been a sharp intake of air before the line went dead. Maybe the person would never call back, because something horrible hard happened to them, and they wouldn't be able to. Or maybe the person had realized exactly who they'd called and freaked out when he'd actually answered. But who would do that?

Who would do that? The question chased itself around inside his head, driving him mad, until one afternoon, he just couldn't take it anymore. He picked up his phone from the middle of his kitchen table; he'd been staring at it as he slowly chewed his way through a sandwich. He scrolled through the memory of recent calls, and hit the callback button. He kept chewing the same bite of sandwich, nearly dissolved in his mouth as he waited as the other line rang in his ear.

XoXoX---- OxOxO ----XoXoX

Ellie had been sitting in a coffee shop, writing an entry paper, when she heard her cell phone ringing over the noise in the room with her. She didn't look at the number displayed before she answered it. If she had looked, she would have recognized the number that now seemed to be imprinted on the inside of her eyelids, and would not have answered. But, she didn't look, so she simply flipped her phone open.

"Hello?" She held the phone between her should and ear as she wrote with one hand, and stirred her coffee with the other.

"_Ellie?"_ said the voice on the other end.

Ellie sat up straight in her seat, her hands dashing down to catch her phone before it hit the floor. She put it back to her ear, holding it firmly to keep from losing it again. She was sure that had been Sean she had just heard saying her name.

"_Ellie?"_ she heard again. There was no doubt in her mind now that it was Sean. As quickly as she could, she gathered all her wits about her and forced herself to verbalize something.

"Sean?" she said, as if she didn't know it was him. "How did you get my new number?" Part of her, a part she would refuse to acknowledge, secretly hoped that maybe he'd called several people trying to get a hold of her.

"_Did you call me last week?"_ he asked. Ellie's stomach dropped. He knew she'd been the one who called and then hung up, and even more painful, he sounded disappointed to hear her voice.

As quickly as she could, Ellie put together the best lie she could think of. "It was an accident, I swear," she said as reasons and excuses ran through her head. "Your ad was right next to the one I was trying to get a hold of, and I got mixed up, looking at the wrong number when I dialed. Sorry."

Sean let out a sigh as he got off the phone with Ellie. She'd called him on accident. It definitely wasn't what he'd been hoping for when he found out that had been her number only a few minutes before.

Then for no reason he would ever be able to explain, he picked up the phone and called her back. She sounded puzzled when she picked up, and Sean quickly muttered, "Hey, if you didn't get that place you meant to call, stop by here and check it out." Then he quickly hung up without waiting for a response.

That night, Sean was feeling pretty stupid about the whole ordeal as he put the leftovers from his late dinner in his fridge before bed. He was just brushing his teeth when he heard a light knock at his front door. _Ellie!_ he thought, although he knew he was getting his hopes up over nothing.

Sean opened the door, toothbrush still in his mouth, which then fell out as his mouth gaped slightly at actually seeing Ellie there. Pulling himself together, he stepped aside and invited her in.

"I just thought I'd come take a look," Ellie said, stepping into the apartment and taking in the surroundings. "It's nice," she commented.

"Yeah, thanks. Let me just…" Sean trailed off, picking his toothbrush up off the floor and taking it back into the bathroom. He walked back out, pulling a shirt on over his head. "So… you look good, El."

"You do too," Ellie responded, glancing at Sean for a moment before continuing her careful critique of the apartment.

XoXoX---- OxOxO ----XoXoX

A short while later, Ellie had gone over every inch of the apartment as best as she could. She remained silent most of the time, asking a very nervous Sean a question or two. He didn't know why he was so nervous. To loosen up a bit, he grabbed himself a beer, offering one to Ellie, who declined.

The two were leaning on the counter from either side, talking to each other a bit, just catching up mostly on the last few years of each other's lives. Then, out of nowhere really, Ellie leaned the rest of the way over the counter and kissed Sean quickly. She instantly regretted it, but Sean didn't look upset or anything.

"Is that why you invited me over?" Ellie asked, the slightest bit of anger appearing in her own voice.

"Of course not," Sean said before he leaned back over to her and began kissing her again. He'd longed to kiss her and touch her again for so long. And here she was, in his apartment, in his arms, in his bed.

XoXoX---- OxOxO ----XoXoX

A short time later, Ellie sat up in Sean's bed, throwing the covers off her and beginning to re-dress herself. Sean propped himself up on his elbow and watched Ellie. "So, what do you think of the apartment?"

Ellie pulled her shoes on. "I already have an apartment Sean."

Sean's face fell. "Then why the hell did you drop by Ellie?" he asked her, angry.

Ellie shrugged, saying one last word before she closed the door behind her. "Closure."


End file.
